San Diego Comic Con X-men Panel: Nightcrawler Lives!

Another year has gone by with me spending too much money on booze to fly out to San Diego Comic Con, but I still manage to stay sober enough to keep up with the events. Every year the fans, the cos-players, and the people who masturbate to those cos-players show up to unite in their love of all things geek and learn a thing or two about the next sinister plot that comic companies are planning.

And there has been a fuckton of amazing shit this year. DC Comics and Warner Brothers announced that rather than a Justice League movie in 2015, we'll be getting a Batman/Superman movie. It's not Justice League, but it's the next best thing. Marvel Studios announced that the next Avengers movie will be titled Avengers: Age of Ultron. And Fox proved that they didn't learn a damn thing from the failure of X3 when they announced that they were going to fuck up Days of Futures Past by making Wolverine the center of attention...yet again.

As big as those announcements are, this is a fucking X-men blog last I checked. And I focus on the big X-men news. So when Marvel held their X-men panel today, it came with a few major announcements. And the biggest announcement by far was that once again, death is as permanent in the Marvel universe as Larry King's wedding vows. Because everyone's favorite fur fetish, Nightcrawler, is coming back to life after being dead for nearly four years. And I say fuck yes to the nth degree!

CBR: SDCC - Marvel Announces Return Of Nightcrawler, More At X-Men Panel

Fans of the X-Men poured into room 6DE at San Diego’s Comic-Con International to hear the creative teams behind their favorite mutants speak at the Marvel Comics X-Men panel.

Moderator Arune Singh began the panel with the creative teams behind the X-books onstage: senior editor Nick Lowe, Brian Michael Bendis (“All-New X-Men”), Paul Cornell (“Wolverine”), Gerry Duggan (“Deadpool”), Peter David (“X-Factor”), Sam Humphries (“Uncanny X-Force”), Chris Hastings, and Brian Posehn (“Deadpool”). Singh told the room editor Jeanine Schaefer will be joining them later, and that Frank Cho and Terry Dodson may also appear later on, interrupting his introduction to cheer Schaefer as she ran up to the stage.

“This is the best panel you’re going to see all convention!” Singh told the packed room to cheers and applause.

They then began by speaking about Marvel’s brand new September and October “Battle Of The Atom” event happening over the X-books, featuring art by Frank Cho, Stuart Immonen, David Lopez, Chris Bachalo, Guiseppe Camuncoli, Esad Ribic.

“The X-Men from the future show up and tell them they have to get out of here, right now, just go,” Bendis said. Of course this does not happen, and the events that follow kick off the crossover, something Bendis promised would have “Major implications for the line.”

“It’s the first X-Men event that Brian [Bendis] is working on with us...and it’s the first one Brian Wood is working on,” Lowe said, adding that it will be the past, present and future of the X-Men colliding.

Singh also showed the image for Steve McNiven and Rick Remender's “Uncanny Avengers” “Ragnarok Now” story, which showed Scarlet Witch’s shattered hat.

Cornell then said in “Wolverine” the character has lost his healing factor, “An original idea, I know!” he joked as the room laughed.

Drawn by Alan Davis, Cornell said that Wolverine will first be grappling with the idea of dying, then defending himself as every foe he’s made decides to go after him, something that Cornell told the room would end in a major shift for the book and character.

“It’s a Wolverine you’ve never, ever seen before and you have no idea what’s coming,” Schaefer said.

“And we killed Peter Parker twice, we’re serious!” Singh joked as the room cracked up.

“It’s a guy whose whole fighting style is ‘Throw myself in front of bullets.’ When he doesn’t have that anymore, what does he have?” Schaefer added, she and Lowe telling the room that his loss of powers will be consistent over all the Marvel books.

“Uncanny X-Force” was next, Humphries telling the fans that “Runaways Artist Adrian Alphona will be drawing a solo story starring Spiral in issue #12, telling the story of her hunting down a young girl. Ramon Perez will also be working on the book.

The room cheered as Duggan and Posehn’s “Deadpool” issue #18 cover flashed up on the big screen.

“We kill Wolverine. Spoiler,” Duggan joked. Posehn said that issue #20 was his favorite upcoming issue so far, Duggan asking the audience “Do you like some Kirby crackle?” to applause and whistles.

Lowe laughingly recalled how the editors had to “Re-examine their life decisions,” after reading the scripts for the upcoming issues that took a “Dark turn.”

“We haven’t dropped the ball yet,” Posehn joked to audience laughter, adding, “But don’t go on the internet.”

Looking at the end of “X-Factor” which showed X-Factor literally closing shop, story drawn by Neil Edwards, David laughed, “That has nothing to do with the story, but it’s a good cover!”

He then said he was so happy to have written the book and to hear fans come up to him and saying how they loved how he turned around B and C-level characters in the book.

“It’s one of the steadiest books in all of comics...’X-Factor’ is this unstoppable, strong and steady book,” Lowe said of sales. Singh added that David will have another new book coming out from Marvel soon.

David also took the time to praise artist Leonard Kirk’s work, telling the audience the industry doesn’t always appreciate a “real solid artist like Leonard,” before leading the room in a round of applause.

Dodson joined the panel in time for Singh to announce he will be joining Brian Wood’s “X-Men.” Schaefer said of the decision to make the team all women, a first for Marvel, “It just made sense.”

“We decided to call it 'X-Men' because they were X-Men, they weren’t X-Women, they were always X-Men,” Schaefer added, telling the room Marvel was very supportive of female-led books and that it was a passion project for her.

“We’ve heard female-led books don’t sell, but...all you have to do is point at ‘X-Men,’ point at ‘Captain Marvel’...you’ve proven the critics wrong,” Singh said to thunderous applause.

Hastings then announced his new book, “Longshot Saves The Marvel Universe,” wherein Longshot, “Gets very lucky,” Hasting said to audience laughter. With artist Jacopo Camagni the first issue will be out in November.

The room bursts into applause again as Singh asked who in the audience wants Nightcrawler back in the Marvel Universe. The room cheered again as the panel announced Nightcrawler will be in the brand new series “Amazing X-Men” by Jason Aaron and artist Ed McGuinness.

“Firestar is going to take her place as a major X-Men character for the first time,” Lowe added, pointing to her on the cover of the first issue along with Azazel. The panel then called Aaron and had the room cheer into the phone.

“We’ve been having to keep this a secret pretty much since Jason was writing ‘Wolverine And The X-Men,’” Lowe said, adding that this book will answer where the little blue and red Bamfs have been coming from. “Nightcrawler is dead, but that’s not the end of his story,” Lowe continued, explaining Azazel is a pirate that is stealing something the X-Men need and Nightcrawler needs to stop him. The team on the book will also include Northstar, Wolverine, Beast, Iceman and Storm.

The panel then threw the floor open to the floor, everyone saying each fan’s name as they came up to the microphone. The first fan asked if the X-Factor characters will be in other books. Lowe said the characters will show up in other Marvel Comics books and places, “In very important roles.”

The next fan wanted to know what characters they want to kill or bring back. “Kill Jim Balushi?” Posehn joked.

“I’m happy with Nightcrawler and I’d like to kill Wolverine!” Cornell laughed. Bendis said Peter Parker to both.

“I’d say bring back Uncle Ben but I already did that, and killing -- is Pixie still around?” David asked as the room cracked up.

“I love Maggot!” Schaefer said as Lowe rolled his eyes and the room cracked up again.

A fan wanted to know if in “Battle Of Atom” there would be new future X-Men yet to be revealed. “There’s a lot of things to be revealed,” Bendis said.

The next audience member to the microphone wanted to know why more mutants haven’t sided with Cyclops. “We’re just at the beginning to see how a lot of mutants are going to react to this, to how some of these new mutants aren’t seen as ‘pure’ mutants by older ones so there’s some racism in their ranks,” Bendis told him, adding all that will begin to be revealed in the next few issues.

Another fan said he wanted to give his well-wishes to David, who explained to the room he had suffered a stroke and had to relearn how to walk. He also said he was surprised how many people and fans gave him messages of support and prayers, including a temple of Buddhist Monks because they, “Liked my run on ‘Hulk!’” David said as the room laughed. He then thanked the comics community for the love and support as the room cheered.

That fan then asked the panel what superpowers they would want.

“Flight!” David said. Lowe wanted teleportation, Bendis wanted “the power of a nap,” Hasting wanted teleportation "without the smell," Cornell wanted Storm’s powers, Posehn wanted “invulnerability to sadness,” Duggan wanted Kitty Pryde’s powers, Dodson wanted Multiple Man’s powers and Humphries wanted the Phoenix Force.

“Should we just kill you now?” Lowe joked as Humphries laughed.

The next fan asked about the possibility of a “Deadpool Max.” Duggan said there was no plans at the time.

“As far as Max, I feel like we’re pushing it already,” Posehn added with a laugh.

Lowe told an X-23 fan the character will show up again, though he wouldn’t say where. He then laughed along with the audience as Bendis pointed to himself.

A fan from the earlier Ultimates panel wanted to know why Brian Wood’s “Ultimate Comic X-Men” was glossed over at the panel. Bendis said they glossed it over because anything they said about the book, “Would be a spoiler” for what’s coming up.

Bendis also reported that Aarons had text him back from the grocery story, reading the text out loud.

“Please tell everybody there I’ve been waiting years to do a story with Nightcrawler...and does anybody there know what a shallot look like?” Bendis said as the room yelled back that a shallot was a “green-looking onion.”

Posehn told a “Cable And Deadpool” fan that somewhere down the line they wanted to have Deadpool and Cable meet up and, “They might be wearing trench coats and they might have Tommy guns, form another time,” the writer said as the panel laughed.

Speaking more about bringing Nightcrawler back, Bendis said they took the idea of resurrection very seriously and didn’t want to do it cynically or do it just for the shock.

Bendis also told there was something coming down the line called “The Utopians” which will have some female X-Men and other mutants readers haven’t seen yet.

The last fan to the microphone was a young boy who reprimanded the group for killing Peter Parker, the audience laughing as the panelists shrugged and Singh brought the panel to a close.

Now if only Marvel would stop killing these characters off in the first place. But then again, these gimmicks would actually have to not work for them to do that. And until drunken fans like myself realize that, we're destined for more of this shit. But if it means more awesome comics and more reasons to kill my brain cells, I'm all for it! Nuff said!

C2E2: X-men Panel Announcements - Wolverine and Battle of the Atom

I liken Marvel and DC as being the only two massage parlors in town. They both offer the possibility of happy endings, but it's very rare that they actually deliver. But because there's no other game in town and there's no other way to get that elusive happy ending, we keep coming back in hopes that our overly generous tips will one day get us what we want. And more often than not, we're disappointed.

Now to be fair, DC Comics has been much more willing to get dirty and work the shaft with their events compared to Marvel. They actually have had a number of events that end on some happy note. It's usually not so nice that it would make it into a Mr. Rogers rerun, but at the very least you won't have to up the dosage of your Prozac prescription. For Marvel, they must have a fuckton of stock in pharmaceutical companies because most of their events end with someone being killed, screwed over, and a little of both. Events like House of M, Civil War, Fear Itself, and Avengers vs. X-men all have one thing in common. Someone usually has to die and/or get screwed over for it to be a true Marvel ending.

For a jaded drunk like me, that's no big deal. But after a while, shit gets old. Marvel has been essentially copying and pasting a lot of old tactics lately, from time travel to big media-hyped deaths. Yet they somehow call themselves the House of Ideas. I think that's grounds for Webster's Dictionary to sue, but I'm not a lawyer so I'll only assume someone is sending a few judges a steady stream of blow and hookers. And yet guys like me keep coming back for more because as shitty as these events are at times, there are some pretty awesome gems in between like Schism, All New X-men, Uncanny X-men, and Uncanny X-Force. It may not give your dick all the attention it wants, but it's worth it.

That brings us to Marvel's latest batch of announcements at C2E2 this past weekend. It has been teased for a while that Marvel will be doing something to celebrate the X-men's 50th anniversary. I had planned to hire a few strippers, a midget, and some guys I met at a gay bar for a house party in Miami complete with pools of booze and cocaine. But Marvel has their own plans and here's what they announced, courtesy of CBR:

CBR: Marvel's X-men Panel

Marvel Director of Communications Arune Singh led the roundtable talk with "X-Men" writer Brian Wood, "Wolverine" writer Paul Cornell, Editors Jordan White and Tom Brevoort, "Wolverine & The X-Men" artist Ramon Perez, "Venom" artist Declan Shalvey, colorist Jordie Bellaire and "Uncanny Avengers" writer Rick Remender.

The panel started talking about "Uncanny Avengers" upcoming arc focusing on "Four Deaths" in the form of resurrected characters like Banshee, Sentry, Grim Reaper and Daken. The Apocalypse twins born of Archangel and Pestilance who were raised in the future by Kang raise the four for their own purposes. "What the Apocalypse twins have done is create the Four Horsemen of Death...this sounds like I'm sitting in my house playing D&D by myself," he joked. "Each one of them have context with our cast. You're going to see a big Sentry/Thor knockdown fight."

White teased incoming strife in "All-New X-Men" as Mystique and Lady Mastermind work behind the scenes to build a group against the time-dispalced original X-Men. Meanwhile in "Uncanny X-Men," young Warren Worthington has joined Cyclops' team, but the real question moving forward is can Magneto be trusted with the team?

"Wolverine & The X-Men" will flash to the future in May's issue #29. Perez announced that he'll be leaving the book after the issue. "I got to draw the school about 50 years in the future with a million and one characters," he said. "Wolverine looks kind of cool with a beard...you get to see what kids make it and what kids don't make it in the future. It is an alternate future, though," he said leaving the story possibilities open. The artist said he'll probably stick with the X-Men line in his future work before he and White noted that issue #29 will see a character defect to the Hellfire Club.

As for Wood's "X-Men," the writer said, "Who's tired of waiting for this book?" to applause. He then announced that a seventh, as of yet unseen cast member on the book will join the book on the very last page of issue #1.

The panel then announced that for September's 50th Anniversary of the franchise, Marvel will publish a new crossover event called "X-Men: Battle of The Atom" which has been put together by Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron and Brian Wood as all of their books will play a part in the ten-part story. It will launch with a "Battle of the Aton" #1 issue drawn by Frank Cho before running in "Uncanny X-Men" #12-13, "All-New X-Men" #16-17, "Wolverine & The X-Men" #36-37, "X-Men" # 5-6 and then wrapping in "X-Men: Battle of The Atom" #2.

The story adds some new players to the Cyclops/Wolverine divide when a group of X-Men from the future land in the present including Kate Pryde, Molly Hayes, Deadpool, Lady Xorn, a futuristically mutated Beast and something called "Ice-Thing" – all designed by Arthur Adams.

The next announcement on the slate was a new story called "Killable" starting in "Wolverine" #7 in August by continuing team of Cornell and Alan Davis. The story will reveal how Wolverine can be killed, and when Sabertooth learns the secret, he gathers a cabal of killers to come after Logan. "It's a dirty, great revenge story with Sabertooth and a number of the great X-Men villains who decide that because of something that's about to happen, Wolverine is about to become killable...leading to a kind of Western-style revenge story," the writer said. "We're leading him to the shadow of the valley of death with Kitty Pryde by his side."

The panel promised that by the end of the story, Wolverine would be fundamentally changed – a story beat Singh said would be all over the national media. There were a number of jokes on the panel about that alongside the idea that fans should shower Cornell with love now as they're going to hate him when "Killable" wraps.

"Deadpool" kicks a new story called "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" in issue #15 by Gerry Duggan, Brian Posehn and Shalvey as new interior artist. The story digs into Deadpool's past where Wade teams with former "Weapon Plus" comrades Captain America and Wolverine. "I'll be honest, I'm a really, really big Wolverine fan," Shalvey said of the gig. "It's a slightly darker story...which really pulled me in." Bellaire added that she hated Deadpool for years after a Deadpool cosplayer was rude to her at a show years before, but working on this book has brought her back around to the character.

The panel then announced that "X-Factor's" September issue will be its last. The move is writer Peter David's choice as he found a natural endpoint of his story. "Right now they're in the middle of the 'Hell On Earth War' arc which really wraps up a lot of the supernatural stories that have been running through the arc," White explained saying that the very final issues will focus on the character relationships in the book including Polaris' relationship with Quicksilver after she accepts that she is, in fact, Magneto's daughter. They then showed a brief video David recorded on the end of the series which has to be seen to get the full effect of the humor, but the writer did say he had another Marvel project in the works.

White then took out his ukulele and led the audience in a "sing along" of the theme from the '90s "X-Men" animated series.

The panel opened up to fan questions, starting with a question as to whether Marvel had any say in how the new "X-Men: Days of Future Past" movie was turning out. Brevoort explained that some higher ups at Marvel were in the loop and could give some notes, but unlike Marvel Studios films, the X-Men franchise is really solely in the control of the team at 20th Century Fox. Similarly, a fan asked after the possibility of more X-Men Legos to which the panel said there may be more sets coming in September.

Wood told a fan that his "X-Men" book would start as a self-contained story and then jump write into the big "Battle of the Atom" event. After that, he'll find a better mix of his own concerns and story beats that play off the events in some of the other X-books.

A fan scoping images online as the panel went asked after another cast member of the "Battle of the Atom" event wondering if Wolverine and Mystique would have a daughter in the future. The question got a "No comment."

Sentry's choice as a Horseman of Death came up, and Remender said the Apocalypse twins have been picking team members based on what they've seen in the future, and what they've seen necessitates certain characters. "We played with Ares as an option, and after going back and forth on it, I went with the Sentry because there was...not untapped potential, but I had some ideas for him," the writer said, adding that it also worked thematically for the idea of a mix of X-Men and Avengers concerns in the book and specifically to lead to the Thor/Sentry rematch. Brevoort said he argued for Ares, but he ceded to Remender's choice in the end.

A fan asked after resurrections of characters might happen in "Battle of the Atom" – particularly Nightcrawler and Jean Grey. The panel took the temperature on the room for either return before declining to comment in any specific fashion.

Wood said that other female characters from the X-Franchise like Pixie could possibly show up in the long term plans for his "X-Men" title, but at the start he wants to get the core cast established strongly.

See those parts I bolded? Well those aren't just the parts that led me to take a few extra shots of tequila. Those are the parts of the announcement that prove my earlier points about Marvel being a shitty massage parlor.

First off, there's time travel. Oh Odin have mercy, there's even more time travel. First we had the Original Five X-men come from the past. Now we've got another team coming in from the future, mostly likely to inform the X-men that they once again fucked up and the world is a dystopian wasteland of killer robots, mutant concentration camps, and Nazi cos-players. Gee, where the fuck have we heard that before? And aren't they making a movie with the same premise? If any of these questions crossed your mind, you need better weed.

Given what's taken place in Age of Ultron right now, Marvel isn't just fucking with the space time continuum. They're drugging Father Time, date raping him, and carving dicks on his face with an ice pick. I know Marvel does a lot of time travel shit, but at some point you gotta give Einstein a chance to stop rolling over in his grave. I'm not saying this event can't be good. Hell, I'll be the first in line to read and review it on my blog with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a bottle of lube just in case. But some new ideas wouldn't hurt.

At the very least, it looks like one of the new characters from the future that was teased involves someone that may or may not be proof that Wolverine and Mystique eventually bone again. It's hard to imagine the circumstances where these two would want to get busy in the current set of circumstances, but that doesn't mean I won't be jerking off to it later.

Smut fanfiction writers, you know you want to show how Mystique and Wolverine make this!

Then there's the announcement that will probably kill my boner. It's yet another tease that Marvel is killing yet another big name character. If ever there was a universal trigger to make every comic book fan erupt in a volcano of bitching and moaning, killing a big name character would be it. And who is bigger than fucking Wolverine? The guy has yet another movie coming out after the last one sucked so bad that the word Barakapool is now considered a synonym for comic book movies that suck elephant balls. And now Marvel wants to kill him?

They don't say outright that he's dying, but it does fall perfectly in line with a rumor that Bleeding Cool ran earlier this year that I reported on that said Wolverine would die in 2014. The man is going to lose his healing factor and his worst enemies are going to take advantage of it. How else can this shit end?

We've seen it with Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four, Charles Xavier in Avengers vs. X-men, and Peter Parker in Ultimate Spider-Man. Killing big name characters draws attention and for some reason it gets fans to fork over their money. I've said it time and again on this blog. The only reason Marvel keeps doing shit like this is because it sells. If this shit didn't sell, Marvel would stop and try to figure out another way to get us to give them our hard-earned money. But it hasn't stopped working. We fanboys are like perpetually PMSing teenage girls and Marvel are the ones dishing out the Midol and chocolate. And we keep taking it like the gullible bitches we are. It's not Marvel's fault. It's ours. And until we understand that (and we won't anytime soon), we'll keep getting fed shit like this and we'll keep gobbling it down.

He's gonna die without knowing how Jean Grey's breasts feel. Poor bastard.

So between time travel and major deaths, the future of X-men looks both promising and infuriating. Yet the high quality of books like Uncanny X-men and All New X-men as well as upcoming books like Brian Wood's all-female X-men give me hope that I'll still have plenty of reviews to do on this blog. And unless you're a Nightcrawler fan or a fan of Peter David's X-Factor, you should have plenty to look forward to. But if you're still holding out for a possible happy ending, keep your lube and porno handy. Because I don't think Marvel is going to deliver once again. Nuff said!